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Mandarin

Countries Spoken
- China and ?; Continent - Asia

With very grateful
thanks to Laura who took an enormous amount of trouble over these.

Mandarin is a very
literal language and a lot of what you say is explained simply by context
and by little 'add-on' sounds within sentences that mean it is a question
or is referring to something that has already happened etc.For example
we would say, "It's a hot day isn't it?" The Mandarin would
say "Day hot + sound to show it wasn't hot before + sound to show
this was a question"

Mandarin is a tonal
language so you have to adjust how you say a word to mean something completely
different; For example take the word "qing"

If you say "qing"
in a high, level voice it can mean "clean, clear and pure".

If you say "qing"
with your voice rising like a question it can mean "feelings and
affection".

If you say "qing"
dropping your voice low and then flicking it up slightly at the end it
can mean, "to ask".

If you say "qing"
with your voice falling sharply like giving a dog a bossy command to sit,
then it can mean, "to celebrate"

These are the four
main tones and then there is a neutral tone, which is as it sounds. When
you are learning Mandarin then you write a symbol for the tone over the
top of the word so you know how to say it - just be aware if anyone is
practising some of these words they may not be saying exactly what they
think they are!